This invention relates to a guide assembly for a curved section of a scraper-chain conveyor.
In order to direct the scraper assembly of a scraper-chain conveyor around a curve in as friction-free a manner as possible, it is known to use a guide assembly having guide means constituted by two vertically-spaced, independently-rotatable pulley wheels. The scrapers of the scraper assembly bear radially against the upper pulley wheel when in the upper (conveying) run, and bear radially against the lower pulley wheel when in the lower (return) run. In operation, the pulley wheels are rotated by their interaction with the scrapers, and they conduct the scraper assembly around the curve with only low friction losses. Typically, an assembly of this type is used in an underground mine in the region where a longwall working joins a roadway, the assembly being used to guide the run of a longwall conveyor into the roadway.
In this type of assembly, the vertical axle which carries the pulley wheels is held within a housing which accommodates the pulley wheels. The pulley wheels are circumferentially profiled to correspond to the profiling of the inner (scraper-guiding) side walls of the channel sections of the conveyor.
In a known guide assembly of this type, the pulley wheels are rotatably mounted on their axle by means of roller bearings, and the pulley wheels, the axle and the bearings are removable as a unit from the guide assembly housing. This facilitates the fitting and dismantling of the heavy and bulky guide assembly to a curved conveyor section, and this is particularly important where space is restricted (as is normally the case at the longwall/roadway junctions of an undergound mine). A guide assembly of this type is described in DE-OS No. 2 817 949.
The aim of the invention is to provide an improved guide assembly for a curved section of a scraper-chain conveyor.